Personal musings on Israel, Jewish matters, history and how they all affect each other

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Israel Has No Right of Self Defense

Charles Krauthammer describes how the world is systematically revoking Israel's right to defend itself. The Obama administration, unfortunately, is part of the problem. Nor, sadly, is Krauthammer's description complete; the reality is worse since he doesn't go into the connections between Israel's repeated attempts to make peace these past 20 years, and the steady deterioration of its international standing and growing appetites of its enemies.

Jews have had it much worse most of the past 2000 years, but it is mildly depressing.

This is related to the real problem. The inability of Israel's secular elites to make the historical and religious case for Jewish ties to the Land Of Israel. It is definitely not an "occupation" as has been endlessly repeated without refutation in conventional discourse. Israel's leaders forget the Arabs too consider Israel's existence itself to be "occupation" and unless Israel is prepared to challenge the current dominant concept, the Jewish State is finding itself living more or less on borrowed time.

Sorry for this rather negative comment followed by two related questions.

But I read Krauthammer’s convincing argument back in June at roughly the time Israel was having a nationwide drill to prepare for a potential attack from its neighbours. In response to the drill, David Horowitz at JPost wrote his own editorial in which he warned that, although the authorities were telling Israelis that it was only a drill (which indeed it was), the country nonetheless might well face another nasty war sooner rather than later given the way everything is going in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

The two pieces together made me feel very depressed, not just mildly depressed. That was not because Israel would be defeated or destroyed in any short conflict lasting a few weeks that it might have with Hamas, Hizbollah, or Syria, or even all three together. Presumably it would win, albeit with lots of casualties on both sides, and no doubt with the routine condemnation it always faces for defending itself.

No, it was the prospect of a more long-drawn-out war lasting months that was depressing. In other words, imagine a situation in which, on the pretext of some minor incident or another, Israel is fired on for months by Hamas, Hizbollah, and Syria simultaneously under the protection of a newly nuclear-armed Iran. Israel fights back successfully at first but, after a few weeks, it is condemned over and over again by almost everyone in the world - including the Arab League, UN, EU, and possibly even the USA – and gets the same kind of unfair media coverage that we saw regarding the Lebanon conflict in 2006 and Gaza war in 2008-9.

Given what happened to Georgia in its recent spat with Russia, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which no-one comes to Israel’s aid, either politically or militarily. Indeed, especially if there’s a nuclear Iran, the Realpolitik of the situation would probably encourage the UN, EU and others to place an arms embargo on Israel, as well as more general economic and cultural boycotts, in response to its alleged war crimes, breaches of international law, collective punishment etc.

My fear is that, after a period of months, Israel would be in roughly the same position as Georgia was after a few days - with the obvious unfortunate difference that, whereas Russia only wanted two small parts of Georgia, Israel's enemies want all of it. In other words, despite its current military strength, Israel would not be able to survive such a sustained political, media, and military onslaught.

So I’ve got two questions for you, Yaakov, in view of the fact that you’re only mildly depressed rather than very depressed: (1) do you think it is unlikely that such a scenario could happen any time soon? and (2) do you think Israel could survive such a scenario, if it did happen?

I read Krauthammer’s convincing argument back in June at roughly the time Israel was having a nationwide drill to prepare for a potential attack from its neighbours. In response to the drill, David Horowitz at JPost wrote his own editorial in which he warned that, although the authorities were telling Israelis that it was only a drill (which indeed it was), the country nonetheless might well face another nasty war sooner rather than later given the way everything is going in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

The two pieces together made me feel very depressed, not just mildly depressed. That was not because Israel would be defeated or destroyed in any short conflict lasting a few weeks that it might have with Hamas, Hizbollah, or Syria, or even all three together. Presumably it would win, albeit with lots of casualties on both sides, and no doubt with the routine condemnation it always faces for defending itself.

No, it was the prospect of a more long-drawn-out war lasting months that was depressing. In other words, imagine a situation in which Israel is fired on for months on end by Hamas, Hizbollah, and Syria simultaneously under the protection of a newly nuclear-armed Iran. Israel fights back successfully at first but, after a few weeks, it is condemned over and over again by almost everyone in the world - including the Arab League, UN, EU, and possibly even the USA – and gets the same kind of unfair media coverage that we saw regarding the Lebanon conflict in 2006 and Gaza war in 2008-9.

Given what happened to Georgia in its recent spat with Russia, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which no-one comes to Israel’s aid, either politically or militarily. Indeed, especially if there’s a nuclear Iran, the Realpolitik of the situation would probably encourage the UN, EU and others to place an arms embargo on Israel, as well as more general economic and cultural boycotts, in response to its alleged war crimes, breaches of international law etc.

My fear is that, after a period of months, Israel would be in roughly the same position as Georgia was after a few days - the unfortunate obvious difference being that, whereas Russia wanted only two small parts of Georgia, Israel's enemies want all of it. In other words, despite its current military strength, Israel would not be able to survive such a sustained political, media, and military onslaught.

So I’ve got two questions for you, Yaakov, in view of the fact that you’re only mildly depressed rather than very depressed: (1) do you think it is unlikely that such a scenario could happen any time soon? and (2) do you think Israel could survive such a scenario, if it did happen?

I read Krauthammer’s convincing argument back in June at roughly the time Israel was having a nationwide drill to prepare for a potential attack from its neighbours. In response to the drill, David Horowitz at JPost wrote his own editorial in which he warned that, although the authorities were telling Israelis that it was only a drill (which indeed it was), the country nonetheless might well face another nasty war sooner rather than later given the way everything is going in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

The two pieces together made me feel very depressed, not just mildly depressed. That was not because Israel would be defeated or destroyed in any short conflict lasting a few weeks that it might have with Hamas, Hizbollah, or Syria, or even all three together. Presumably it would win, albeit with lots of casualties on both sides, and no doubt with the routine condemnation it always faces for defending itself.

No, it was the prospect of a more long-drawn-out war lasting months that was depressing. In other words, imagine a situation in which Israel is fired on for months on end by Hamas, Hizbollah, and Syria simultaneously under the protection of a newly nuclear-armed Iran. Israel fights back successfully at first but, after a few weeks, it is condemned over and over again by almost everyone in the world - including the Arab League, UN, EU, and possibly even the USA – and gets the same kind of unfair media coverage that we saw regarding the Lebanon conflict in 2006 and Gaza war in 2008-9.

Given what happened to Georgia in its recent spat with Russia, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which no-one comes to Israel’s aid, either politically or militarily. Indeed, especially if there’s a nuclear Iran, the Realpolitik of the situation would probably encourage the UN, EU and others to place an arms embargo on Israel, as well as more general economic and cultural boycotts, in response to its alleged war crimes, breaches of international law etc.

My fear is that, after a period of months, Israel would be in roughly the same position as Georgia was after a few days - the unfortunate obvious difference being that, whereas Russia wanted only two small parts of Georgia, Israel's enemies want all of it. In other words, despite its current military strength, Israel would not be able to survive such a sustained political, media, and military onslaught.

So I’ve got two questions for you, Yaakov, in view of the fact that you’re only mildly depressed rather than very depressed: (1) do you think it is unlikely that such a scenario could happen any time soon? and (2) do you think Israel could survive such a scenario, if it did happen?

Apologies for the three duplicate comments from me on this thread! The system told me my comment was too long, so I tried again twice with a few reductions in word length. And now it looks as though each comment went on successfully after all!